Standard draws on the legacy of Maurice Solomon Gouttman.

Many shall be restored that are now fallen,
and many shall fall that are now in honor.

Shrewdly translated by Benjamin Graham, Horace’s verses have not only inspired the very essence of our investing philosophy; they also governed every stage of Maurice Gouttman’s life. Born in 1899, Maurice belonged to an industrious family of merchants from Skala-Podilska—nowadays in southwestern Ukraine—who had flown Czarist persecutions in a quest for a new start in the burgeoning Jewish settlements of Palestine.

His father, Abraham, was a consummate oenologist. In this capacity, he was dispatched by baron Edmond de Rothschild to administer his vineyards and cellars near the Zikhron Ya’akov settlement, where Maurice and his siblings grew up. Existence remained fraught with danger, however, like before in Eastern Europe, as Arab communities and their Ottoman rulers alike resented the settlers’ presence.

Besides, it was the dawn of the first world war and Abraham, both an European at heart and a discerning man who had diversified his business interests by establishing a trading enterprise in Beirut, would not suffer the risk of seeing his sons enrolled in the Turkish army to fight against the Allies. In 1911, he left Palestine for Lebanon with his Lithuanian-born wife Cécile Cantor and their four children.

The family stayed in the “Paris of the Middle East” during a decade, and then sailed to Australia as Abraham’s brother, who had emigrated there during the gold rush of the late 19th century, was regularly urging his relatives to join him. For the Gouttmans, a promised land replaced another. They left the Eastern Mediterranean region for Sydney, where they became citizens of the British Empire and bought a residence—the Villa Hermosa—in the posh neighborhood of Mosman.

Abraham and Maurice immediately proceeded to set up a retail operation. Life was peaceful, if not uneventful, and above all marked by a distinct feeling of remoteness. Maurice, not unlike his parents and siblings, felt in exile. Eventually the father and his son decided to return to Europe, this time choosing France, perceived at the time as a land of freedom, tolerance, culture and equality—themes that could only appeal to a worldly, enterprising Jewish family.

They went to Bordeaux and Abraham turned back to winemaking by acquiring the Château La Landette in the Médoc region. Maurice and his brother Léon, for their part, ran a car rental business from the Garage Pasteur, located on the lively Saint-Catherine street. However, with Abraham’s health declining and the ensuing difficulties of running the Médoc estate, the family decided to move northward and set home in Paris.

They initially settled rue Hérold, just a quick walk away from Le Louvre and Palais-Royal. Abraham invested in several properties in the eastern part of the French capital, making the country their homeland for good. In 1934, Maurice married Noelle Lucas and chose to take the French citizenship, whereas his parents remained subjects of the British empire till their death. In 1936, he founded C.A.W.A — « Comptoir Automobile Warrant Achats » —  an auto parts business based in the 11th district of Paris.

Abraham passed a few months after the second world war broke out, and just a few weeks ahead of the German invasion of France. When the latter occurred, Maurice, prescient about the turn of events, and mindful of what carrying a Jewish name might entail under nazi occupation, decided to flee, leaving just about everything behind.

A family of such origins is no stranger to disaster, but this one was unprecedented in scale and speed. Amid indescriptible chaos—it was in the midst of the “Great Debacle”, the catastrophic collapse of France in the early summer of 1940—Maurice rushed to Bordeaux and embarked with wife Noelle and daughter Evelyne on the very last civilian boat leaving French shores, having no idea of its destination. On this dramatic moment which later became an integral part of the family’s tale, the three of them abandoned Maurice’s brand new car on the platform « with its keys still in the ignition ».

Only onboard did they learn that the ship was originally supposed to go to Canada, yet after a short while at sea it had to get rerouted to England because of the deadly threat posed by German submarines. Born in Torquay in 1942, Maurice’s son Alain was given George as a second name in tribute to king George VI who had granted asylum to the family and their fellow countrymen. Now a dispossessed refugee, Maurice, who would always recall his British hosts with much fondness, supported his wife and children by working at the mess of the Royal Air Force base in Plymouth.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them:”Hold on!”

Maurice came back in France after the war ended, only to realize that everything he once owned had been stolen. After Australia, Bordeaux and his first entrepreneurial adventure in Paris, he had to start over from a blank page for the fourth time of his life, not unlike his father before him, and possibly like many other of his forefathers from the previous generations.

With the helpful hand of his step-brother Raymond Verhille, an upstanding man and astute entrepreneur whom he had always considered his actual brother, the ever-resourceful Maurice got back on his feet and together they built up a successful garment enterprise named Société Lucas.

Maurice passed in 1975. His story, which his successors look up to with devotion and intend to honor as generations pass, resemble those of so many other Jewish families of that time. It is a tale of courage, steadfastness and soldiering through in the face of harrowing calamity, as well as a testament to the eternal verses of Horace and Kipling.